When Time Collides
by Picklesz
Summary: When the world isn't right, when the ending of darkness seems inevitable, someone has to stand up... But how can you when you're existing in a world that's corrupted, that shouldn't exist? What can you do when you just avoided your death, your destiny, written out by fate, without even knowing how? *ON PERMANENT HIATUS, CHECK PROFILE FOR MORE DETAILS*
1. Prologue and Chapter 1

A/N: **Welcome to this new EarthBound story! Not like we see a lot of those XD.**

 **Anyways, this story is supposed to be a more "serious" story but after reading this you probably won't believe that XD. I mean, it's a freaking EARTHBOUND story. Gotta put that crazy humor in no matter how serious it is XD. I've been told this story is "beautifully fricking hilarious".**

 **This story will be updated every other Wednesday (WedNESSday).**

 **Anyways, hope you enjoy the story! Hopefully I'm just a fast reader and its not rushed xD**

 **Also I don't know why I chose the person who's the protagonist to be it. I don't think many people use him as it so... Yeah I'm weird xD**

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Prologue:

Once the final needle was pulled, the world went dark.

Nobody knew what would happen next. Nobody would ever know.

Because the world doesn't last forever: like water, it evaporates, disappears. Like rain, it pours down again, restarting a cycle, over and over again.

Albeit, the resetting of the world wasn't exactly a reset.

It was also like cell division: multiplying, making another copy of the same world at the end of its life. The same to be repeated of the copy's life.

But cell division wasn't perfect. Mistakes were always made; an imperfect way of replication effecting a repeated world.

So an imperfect world's timeline was becoming imperfect.

Chapter 1:

The future wasn't good.

Who knew it was the future, anyways? The boy had just randomly decided by himself that it must be the future, because it hadn't happened in the past. Plus, it felt so real.

Still, he knew that wasn't a very good reason to assume something that out of the ordinary.

All he saw was the world corrupted and falling apart, lives taken, the whole universe ceasing to exist...

 **0o0o0o0**

"Hey, are you awake yet? Or did I stumble upon a dead person in a forest?"

The voice felt muffled in the boy's head. Why was a stranger talking to him?

"Open your eyes, for goodness sake. I know you're awake now."

There was no time for mental debating as a light started flashing in his eyes, waking him up fully. He slowly opened his heavy eyes and saw another person crouching down in front of him, a flashlight in their hand.

"Confused?" The other person interrupted before he could say anything. "I am too. Luckily, I am your savior and I'm going to save you from dying a slow and painful death in the middle of nowhere. Even though you're five minutes away from a town."

"What?"

"Yeah."

Silence.

"It's a stupid question," he started, "but do you know how I got here?"

"What? You don't? To be honest, I was hoping you'd tell me, because I just randomly came across you in this forest."

"Oh... Well, do you at least know where Podunk is?"

"You mean the town, right?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Well... Bad news, but it doesn't exist anymore."

"Are you..."

"Lying? No. I just walked down there today and it had disappeared like nothing happened. Did you live there or something?"

"Of course I did... so did my family... Were there any people left? Which way there?"

"One, I don't know, two, it was to the right of here-"

"It still is." He didn't know who this person was or what kind of thing they were trying to pull on him, but Podunk had to still be there. How does a town just disappear into thin air?

But, only adding to the absurdity of the situation, that stranger was right.

All that was there was a blank field of grass, swaying gently in the breeze, leaving no signs of anybody ever living there.

He had to be in the wrong spot. What seemed to be happening was completely impossible. He turned to look somewhere else but was only met with the voice of the same stranger again.

"Look, its gone. I don't know what happened to it but there's obviously something much greater than just that going on."

"How could a town just disappear like that? Why am I still alive?" The realization sank in. His home was gone. His family... Was now gone too.

And for a moment, he thought it might've been better if had just died with them.

He quickly shook the thought from his head. That just... wasn't right. In any way.

"I don't know, but it's important." The other person once again interfered with his thoughts. "I mean, the last time I remember this happening was... Oh, never."

"... What should I do, then?" He whispered. "We don't know each other, and everyone that I've ever known is gone. I know it weak to be complaining about it, but..."

"I can't change the second thing, sorry, but I can change the first one. We can find out what's happening to this world. I'm Ness."

He hesitated for a second: if he complied, what would happen? He just met a random person that thought they could solve this mystery AND didn't care if he knew their identity.

But that, combined with the fact his whole life was basically lost, he had no choice but to agree. At least, in his mind.

So he took a breath, telling himself that no harm would come out of this, and finally said his name.

"I'm Ninten." The instant he said that he regretted it- giving your name, your identity, to a stranger probably wasn't the brightest idea. He was probably too caught up in the moment, even if his home town had just disappeared.

But if the other person had told him who they were, that meant they trusted him.

Such a thing to do when you just met someone. Then again, he could be over thinking it. Making friends was good, especially after you're town disappeared, right?

"Well, _Ninten_ ," The other person started: he kept forgetting their name was Ness, kind of a strange name (although, who was he to judge? His own name was Ninten: what kind of name was that either? And Ness wasn't really a 'they' anymore, was he?). "I think the first 'course of action' would be to find out what happened to this place. Agree?"

Ninten could only nod. He found it strange how someone could just meet a random person in a forest and then just act like they were friends. Or become one in five minutes; he didn't really know what they were, he kind of gave it the label of 'some crazy stuff happened so now I guess I know this person?'.

"Got it!" Ness shouted.

"What is it?" Ninten asked.

"Well I found the clue! And it's you!"

"W-What?"

"I mean, you're the only remaining thing from Podunk: there has to be a reason!"

"What can I do, though? I have no clue about what happened, where answers might be-"

Suddenly a crash reverberated through the field, interrupting what apparently was going to be their normal conversations from now on. A shield of what seemed like light(?) protected the two of them until the debris cleared and showed what had probably just crash landed.

A rock sat in the middle of the field, a crater created upon impact. The rock itself was about as big as Ninten, if not slightly bigger. How did a meteor just land on Earth without any warning? It was probably just another reason to be confused.

When was this day going to stop being strange? Ninten was almost convinced that he was either hallucinating or dreaming.

A second later he was fully convinced as the rock had started _glowing_.

Glowing? Since when did meteors do _that_? Maybe he was wrong since he had never seen one himself, but he fairly certain that, by the laws of science, that was _NOT_ possible.

And, just to confuse him even more, it seemed like a voice in his head was calling out to him, to tell him to touch that meteor.

He really had to learn to ignore the laws of science from now on.

He told himself internally that he was seriously having a strange dream right now and that this wasn't real, but yet he couldn't dispel the urge to go over to the meteor and see what this voice was telling him. But after a few minutes, he finally gave in, albeit walking up awkwardly to the glowing rock and putting his hand on it.

Instantly his vision want dark. The same voice retained in his head, still speaking to him, but now much more clearly.

 _'You've been through a lot in the past minutes, haven't you?'_ The voice echoed in his head, seeming to sympathize with him. ' _That's the way the world works, isn't it?_

 _'But enough rambling about it. You've been called to save the world from destruction. Don't worry. Don't fear, either. You, with the power of others, will save this world from catastrophe. It's destiny._

 _'Go to Onett. You'll find what you're looking for there. Goodbye, Ninten.'_

The voice faded away, along with the black cover on the world. He felt... empowered. Like he gained some kind of new power. Maybe like the shield of light that protected them when the meteor crashed. Was that what he got? Did he even gain anything at all?

Those questions would be answered eventually, he told himself. For now, he decided he should go to Onett.

Because even if the voice wasn't real, it was the only lead he had.

He turned around to see that Ness was still there, by the edge of the forest. He would come too. Mainly because Ninten didn't have anyone else at this point in his life.

"We need to go to Onett," Ninten announced. Ness seemed to think that the fact that Ninten just got a message from a freaking meteor was normal, which was fine by Ninten because he needed someone to think he wasn't crazy.

"Well, what are we waiting for?" Ness asked rhetorically. "We gotta look for creepy stuff in Onett! Let's go!"


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: **Sorry this is late guys :/. I didn't want to use this as an excuse but I did get sick Monday and Tuesday which are my main writing days for Wednesday-updated stories. I told myself I would finish it in time but in the end I decided for quality over quantity.**

 **(Nobody probably cares but I just got back from playing at Homecoming with the Marching Band. I play Flute and it was so much fun :))**

* * *

Turned out, he wasn't dreaming.

It had been almost an hour of pointless wandering through the streets of Onett so Ninten was pretty sure he was, in fact, awake. Good thing it was only a five minute walk (for some reason. Why didn't he know this town existed then?).

Now the only problem was finding something other than the buildings. They had walked down the same streets so many times it was starting to annoy him. There was nothing useful, nothing to actually find out where Podunk went. He usually didn't get upset easily but that obviously wasn't happening now. He wasn't just going to let the matter of something as strange as this go.

His whole life had basically been thrown away in an instant, and a confusing one at that. Whatever 'force' had caused it, he was going to find it out.

No matter what it takes.

But, obviously, he couldn't do that if he didn't find a lead soon. The same buildings that seemingly warped back around were frustrating him to no end. What kind of idea was to go to Onett, a town that he didn't even know existed?

Oh, whatever. It was the best option he had.

Or he tried to convince himself.

Not to mention he was traveling with a random strange who supposedly thought he was normal. Since when is that normal? Did the person even know what the layout of Onett was? Because he sure didn't, and he really needed to.

Enough complaining, he told himself. It will work. Probably. Somehow. Maybe.

Yeah, it was going to be a long time.

"Hey, I found... something."

Oh, what did he expect.

He looked to the... person (okay, that was even weirder to call someone by, especially when he was basically traveling with that person, he really needed to get the name Ness down) and saw in front of him was a trail.

Okay, maybe it wasn't so bad to have a new stranger to help him.

"Maybe it'll lead... somewhere," Ness continued, pointing to the dirt pathway and shrugging. "It'll have to work as some kind of lead."

"That's what I was thinking." Ninten walked forward, Ness (hopefully) following behind him.

"How sophisticated we are, walking through a deserted trail in a town like Onett," Ness added.

"Did you live here before, or...?" Ninten looked behind at Ness, who seemed to have no explanation, making Ninten second guess himself for doing this.

"Um, well," Ness laughed, "that's a long story."

"Wait, you can't just leave your family if-"

"That's another long story. Ask me later. Hey, look, something different than dirt!" Ness changed the subject, his tone changing to a lighthearted one.

And rightfully so. In front of them was a type of old shack with a gate blocking everything next to and behind it. A sign read "Keep out!" with more graffiti scrawled under those words: "especially kids that want to find out what's in here! Don't come in! You'll regret it! -Sincerely, Definitely a Random Person". Another sign said the name of the place (or probably what it was), "Giant Step".

"Someone really wants to keep us out here," Ness noted obviously.

"Does that mean that... somebody's following us?" Ninten asked, regretting for a second getting involved with this, and a second later remembering why he was even going along with this person.

Ness only shrugged to his question. "Mmmmmmaybe. Well, let's get into this place."

"What are we supposed to do, climb the fence?" Ninten asked rhetorically, but Ness actually nodded and started to climb over it. Ninten sighed internally and followed the crazy newcomer up into the "dangerous" place. So much for protection. It was just a fence, nothing special about it. There was still hope that it really was just a random person that put graffiti on the sign while trying to joke around or something.

"So now we do as much exploring as we can, mostly hoping that we find something," Ness claimed proudly, going off and already starting to search around.

Hoping was really the best they could do.

0o0o0o0

How did it come to this?

Really, it started as innocent exploring in a restricted area- yeah, innocent, they were only probably breaking the law- and then they ended up in a freaking cave.

Even weirder was the fact there was ladders already in the cave. Well, compared to what was happening right now, it really wasn't that absurd.

The strangest thing was that a giant ant was blocking their was into a part of the cave. And it had a freaking weird power that an ant probably shouldn't have. Or any living creature should for that matter.

And now Ness was using it too.

What the heck was going on?

Ninten suddenly wanted to wake up again.


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: **...I'm not even going to pretend the ending of the last chapter was good. It felt like the end of Mother to be honest xD. Just pretend it never happened.**

 **Anyways, I don't think I'll always update it on Wednesday. I try to put it's a loose deadline. But I'll always update on the Thursday or Friday following it, don't worry.**

 **Anyways...**

* * *

Things were happening that really weren't supposed to happen.

Like, stuff that was really only read about in books and myths and dreams and other fictional stuff like that. In fact, Ninten felt like he was in dream. He probably was, to be honest, a long and crazy one at that. This was most likely not the average length for dreams.

Yet, no matter how much he tried to wake up, he just couldn't. The fictional stuff was still reality for now: even the walls were freaking glowing. That wasn't normal; not by his standards, at least.

But what were standards anymore?

Also, why did he have to argue with himself so much? His whole mind was a jumble of crazy, impossible events that had only taken place in a single day. And somehow, he was probably at the center of it, starting at the moment he was somehow spared from a unrealistic death.

Why was he still instantly coming to all these conclusions?

All that mattered right now was what was happening in the present, he told himself. He would figure everything else out later.

But it turned out, figuring out what was going on in the present was almost even harder than trying to figure out what his life was now.

The walls weren't glowing anymore: everything that was... not normal, was gone. Only a faint light remained near an entrance to the outside world, the only thing that gave a clue to what had happened only minutes ago. And only the two of them stood at the top of the ledge. It felt as if only seconds had passed, which may or may not have been true. Ninten didn't know.

Ness (thank goodness he finally got that name down) walked forward to the entrance and looked back at him. "So, any questions?"

Ninten kind of wanted to say, 'Yes, namely what the heck just happened?', but that was really not a good way to ask a question. Plus, he was just confused. Really confused.

"Uh..." Was all he managed to get out before he got interrupted.

"Okay, I'm hoping that a no." Ness walked forward. "Let's go."

"Wait a second," Ninten managed, getting his voice back. "What exactly just... happened?"

"Ohh that." Ness seemed to roll his eyes at that. "Well, it's another... complicated story. Okay, to be honest, I have no idea how to explain it. Hopefully you're not too freaked out by psychokinetic powers, 'cause that's basically what it is."

Psycho... kinetic. It sounded good in his head but he probably couldn't say it. But he was confused by it nonetheless: the fact he didn't know exactly (or even had a clue) what that was probably played a big role in that.

Most likely by seeing his confused look, Ness added, "It's basically psychic powers. Some fantasy twist, I know, but it's true."

Something about that sparked a memory in his mind: something he had read years before. Something involving psychic abilities in it, too. Then he remembered reading about his great grandfather studying this: well, after supposedly being captured by aliens (like that actually happened) but you couldn't conduct a study for years without the thing you're studying being real.

Ness was telling the truth. A crazy, impossible, but realistic truth.

Was this why Podunk had disappeared?

"Mind jumbling, isn't it?" Ness interjected through his thoughts once again. "You'll get used to it. It's the only consistent thing these days." With that, he walked out of the cave, leaving Ninten with no choice but to follow. Not only because he didn't explore a (illegal) cave for nothing, but now because he wanted to know more about this psychokinetic thing. What did that even do? He knew it was probably what made the walls glow (no duh) but what specifically?

Maybe latching onto mysteries helped him ignore that fact that almost everything he once knew was gone.

He had to stop assuming things so much.

"And the outside... leads into another part of the cave," Ness observed audibly. What had seemed like a great expanse of land from the inside was just another, grass covered ledge. "Great structure, now we have to go through another part. Caves are great, aren't they?"

Ninten sighed. What were they still exploring this cave for anyways? All they'd found was ledges, creatures with psychic powers (did Ness count as a creature?), and a random expanse of land. Well, the 'creatures with psychic powers' were actually kind of worrying. Other than that, there was no reason to-

"Hey, look at this."

Of course, the second Ninten thought it couldn't get weirder, Ness had to find something else (curiosity, why?). What the heck did he find this time?

Ninten looked inside the second cave and found what Ness had saw. A glowing, pink rock that almost looked like a shell sat in the middle of the small chasm. What would something like that be doing here?

Yet it got even stranger: he was being talked to again, just like with the meteor. He couldn't hear what the voice was saying, only hearing faint whispers of speech. He subconsciously moved forward to the stone, reaching out with his mind in hopes to learn what it was saying.

 _'Who has lost his tail?'_

Uh... what kind of question was that? Rocks seemed to love to speak to him and tell him weird things. Yet, for some reason, he spoke an answer (in his head, of course, he didn't want to seem even more weird than he was already acting):

 _'The forgotten one of the ship that sails the cosmos.'_

Instantly, he was jolted out of his trance. The world around him blurred and transformed, settling on surroundings of shell-shaped buildings and the ground as a giant pink cloud. Creatures like cats walked everywhere, even one floating in... water(?) right next to him. He was memorized and scared of what he just did. He just freaking teleported or passed out or started hallucinating. For some reason, the foremost seemed the most likely.

What was he doing?


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: **So Im not dead xD. I'm just bad at doing this deadline for some reason. Anyways... enjoy!**

* * *

Teleportation was not as cool or as fun as people would think.

Ninten didn't know how it worked, much less how he accomplished it. And when something like this actually happened, he didn't know where he was in the first place. Of course, this could've not been teleportation, but this was way too weird of a place to be a hallucination or the like.

Now the problem was how to get out of there. Nothing was trying to communicate with him anymore: whether that was a good or bad thing he didn't know. He should've never even tried to talk to the weird rock thing anyways. It was the second time that day he did that yet he still didn't know how he did it, or how to shut it off... Whatever it was, he had to figure out how he did it and how to stop it, or else he'd be in more trouble than he was already.

More important things were at hand, he told himself as his thoughts quickly derailed off the main problem. He had to find a way out of here. Soon. He was by himself, but surely he could solve this simply.

But as he tried to find a way out, all he found was pink clouds, spiralling rocks, and more clouds. And when he could find something, these people (assumed to be guards) blocked him and wouldn't let him go past unless he correctly answered a riddle that was even odder than the one he answered to get there. The difference was that no matter how many times he tried to answer he could never get it right. He didn't even get a chance to respond.

He was never going to get out of there, he realized as he ended up left back at square one. He was trapped, and it was all his own fault, too. He was basically dead.

Which he should've been in the first place.

Was he just delaying his death? There was no reason to have mysteriously survived the 'disappearing' of his town. He should've been with them. Then he would still be with them.

He was jolted out of his thoughts when a noise reached his ears. It was not a sound he could describe. The only words he thought of was 'ominous' and 'intriguing' as he made his way over to the area where he guessed it came from. Maybe he'd find something.

And he did find something.

Opened out in front of him was a giant expanse of holes. Only holes, all of which produced the eerie noise. He almost wanted to turn back, but... Something tugged at him and told him this was the way out. Maybe it was himself just hoping, grasping on to a fake, nonexistent lead, but it was the only thing he had, a common occurrence as of now.

Unfortunately, it seemed only one hole lead... somewhere, and the rest were... holes that you couldn't fall in to? They all looked like holes and when you looked into them they sure did still look like a hole... but when you steeped onto one of the 'imposter' holes it granted you access to nowhere. With his luck he thought he wouldn't find the actual one until an hour later.

It turned out that he actually found the one very quickly. To test the holes you actually only had to step on them, so it took about a minute the right one. Thinking pessimistically was not always right.

The bad part was he fell down the hole instead of climbing down it.

Luckily, the drop wasn't very long so he landed on his feet and still in tack. As he looked around, he wonder why this would be a good idea. It was an almost pitch-black, empty, creepy room. Through the faint amount of light he could see two exits (they had ladders thank goodness). He went down the one to his left... and saw two more of the 'exits'.

Why did this have to turn into another maze?

He continued going down the one to his left, hoping something might come up, but nothing did. He retraced his steps, feeling lost for what to do. He felt like something would jump out of the darkness at him. He felt like something was always behind him. It wasn't a good feeling.

Trying to steel himself against the eerie void that was the 'well', he made his was through the unending maze. Ladder after ladder, footstep after echoing footstep, he finally made his way to a floor that wasn't compromised of two 'exits'. Instead, it was more like a giant maze on one floor.

Somehow, that made it creepier. Maybe it was because now he didn't have another place to escape to if something did decide to jump out at him and kill him. Or just scare him. Both were equally terrifying.

He backed up against a wall. At least if something tried to kill him, he'd see it. It felt almost peaceful, now that he knew almost for sure nothing was here or going to kill him.

He regretted think that the next moment.

Something like eyes jumped out at him. Maybe that was why he felt like he was being watched. But that's now what he was thinking in that moment. His thoughts were more like 'oh crap oh crap oh crap'. He backed up even further against the wall, staring at the creature before him. He was going to die, even it was by two pairs of eyes.

He didn't want to die here. He wished he could go back in time and make sure this never happened.

The world around him froze suddenly, but only for a split second. A second later, it was blurred and in a stop-motion. The creature was moving away from him. He felt like he was in a different reality.

Then he was flung back to the real world. The thing was gone, and he was at a hole in the wall. He felt exhausted, like he had exerted himself too much.

Did he... did he just time travel?

Why did he have so many mysteries surrounding him? First telepathy, now maybe time travel...

This was the biggest mystery he had ever heard of and it was about himself.


End file.
